A Pile Of Bones
by Sir-Mercutio-McHuffer
Summary: A post Rogue One medical fixit, where nobody dies, but nobody gets off Scarif unscathed. (Includes much swearing, inappropriate therapy animals, and very pungent tauntauns.)
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** Well shit. I've watched Rogue One twice so far, and I am so many different kinds of not okay with the ending I just can't even.

As I do with all new stories, introductions are in order. I'm a vet student. I write short(ish) chapters, some of which are much much shorter than others. Some are set one after the other, others are just little snippets in time. It works for me, because, like I said before, I'm a vet student, which means I spend 99.9% of my time sobbing into my laminated notes, and the other 0.1% of my time either playing with my animals, eating, shitting, or sleeping (usually never doing two of these at once).

This is all totally gratuitous. It's going to be Chirrut/Baze and eventual Cassian/Jyn. It's going to be OC Bones (imagine a slightly younger, female version of Star Trek's Bones McCoy) being a seriously grumpy sweary toad, and Bodhi being a seriously precious cinnamon bun who JUST NEEDS CUDDLES AND CODDLES OKAY! And OC Linta mothering everyone.

Also because I'm a vet I (theoretically) know animal anatomy and physiology, not human. Also because I'm a student, I don't know a huge amount about treatment thereof, so I'm improvising a bit, and collaborating with a vet nurse to get slightly more accurate things. I'll also stick a glossary of terms up at the end of each chapter and attempt a laymans explanation of it (GOOD PRACTICE FOR MEEEEEEEEE).

 **Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

* * *

Her communicator buzzes to life. "Rogue One coming in with casualties, you're requested at landing pad A2, emergency on board."

"Confirm, landing pad A2. Request what kind of medical emergency," Bones replies. She's already in motion, hands grabbing her kit. Linta spots her from across the room and whirls into action herself.

"Tib, Dart, with me; Pen, prep room four, unknown incoming casualties," Linta says, and the nurses rush out the door to obey.

"Uhh emergency not breathing, pilot advises three more passengers have sustained blaster injuries," the voice replies.

"Confirm emergency not breathing, confirm three further injured, request Rogue One ETA," she barks. Linta slips into step with her, carrying her own emergency kit. Tib and Dart fall into step behind them, checking their own array of on-the-body supplies. There always gurneys located in the hangers, for exactly this reason, even though it is very rare for a pilot to return to them in such a condition as to need one.

They're usually dead by then.

"Rogue One ETA two and counting. Out." The communicator gives one last spit of crackling and goes quiet.

"Shit," she says emphatically, and breaks into a run. Linta keeps pace beside her. "You got that?"

"Yep," Linta says. She pulls out her communicator. "Pen, have the crash cart on hand and four beds, we have one non breather and three blasters coming in."

"Confirmed, one non breather and three blasters, one crash cart and four beds. Advise relocating to room eight as it has more bacta tanks," Pen's voice crackles over the communicator.

"Confirmed room eight. Will advise on nature of emergency and blaster injuries on our way. Out." Linta clicks the communicator and clips it back onto her belt. "Someone must have said we were quiet today."

"I'm going to find them and pour bantha shit into their boots," she snarls in reply.

"I'll help you."

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** Okay I've put a really big glossary at the end for any unfamiliar terms with an attempt at layman's explanations, in the order they appear in the fic. For anyone visually impaired using text-to-speech software, if your software is having difficulty with these terms, MESSAGE ME and I'll put up a recording of the difficult chapters for you to listen to, as well as the full glossary.

I'll explain my reasoning as to why Bones works like this later in the fic, but for now, just go with the flow that she's a hands-on doc. I'm running off a mishmash of current techniques and futuristic diagnostic equipment. I figure the rebellion wouldn't have all the really cool shit, and what cool shit they do have, they use as sparingly as they can. I've done my best to make this as medically accurate as possible.

 **Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

* * *

By the time they reach landing pad A2 – the closest landing pad to the internal bulkhead, and thus the best place to land for quick access to/from medical – the Delta class T-3c is already landed and beginning its hatch opening process.

"Clear the area!" Linta booms, and people scramble out of the way but for four security personnel. They stand between them and the hatch. Tib and Dart stand on either side of a gurney, ready to roll it up the ramp as soon as it finalises its descent.

The hatch thunks against the metal flooring and the air clears. A huge man stands and gestures.

"Hurry!" he says. "He cannot breathe!" Bones identifies the edge of panic in his eyes, movement, voice, before they're thundering up the ramp and into the belly of the shuttle.

There are two men lying on the floor. One is bleached-bone white beneath his oxygen mask. The other watches them with dark eyes from a pinched face. The security personnel diffuse into the ship, checking for any threats.

The medical team descends.

"Tib, get me stats on dirty mo," Bones snaps, whipping out her stethoscope and plugging it into her ears. She hears a noise of protest from said man. Tib kneels and whips out his medisensor.

"Dart, I want triage and stats on everyone else on this ship." Dart moves off after a quick salute to check over the large man who first gestured them in (tentatively holding left arm, dragging left leg from the hip) and the woman sitting off to one side with a brutally tight tourniquet around her thigh.

Linta jerks open the prone man's robes to bare his chest, one hand reaching up to probe his trachea and tip his chin back. She pulls off the oxygen mask and whips out an endotracheal tube and laryngoscope.

"I'm hearing nothing," Bones says. She throws her hand up to the man's neck to probe his jugular. Swears and jabs a blood pressure and heart rate monitor onto his finger. It beeps. "We've got heart rate, no breath, cardiac auscultation negative," she rattles. "BP fourty over twenty."

"Cyanotic mucous membranes and lips. CRT _way_ over two. Larynx and trachea clear. Intubating," Linta replies.

"Possible pneumothorax, thoracocentesis now," Bones says. Her hands reach for her gloves, swabs, sterile scrub and preps a needle and syringe. She sticks the plunger end between her teeth, whips on her gloves. Swabs the skin in the lateral ninth intercostal space and scrubs it down _hard_. Removes the cap from the needle and carefully guides it between the ribs. She draws back on the plunger. "Fuck it's haemothorax."

"Bones, it's blast injuries," Tib says. There's a moment of silence.

" _Fuck_ ," she says.

"Endotracheal tube in," Linta says. "Delivering one hundred percent oxygen, artificial respiration." Bones continues pulling the plunger, and continues sucking up blood.

"BP thirty five over fifteen," Bones calls out. She pulls off the full syringe and sticks a new, much larger one, on the needle. She withdraws the plunger at a steady rate.

"Pilot, third degree burns! Thirty percent TBI _minimum_ , no respiratory involvement, facial involvement at one, two and three, hand involvement at three and then he _piloted the damn ship_ ," Dart howls from somewhere near the front.

"Get more gurneys!" Bones yells, and the security personnel scatter to obey.

"Dirty mo suspected multiple fractures T10 to L5, clean fracture left clavicle, blaster right shoulder, fractures to left ribs three and four, right nine, nerve impingement suspected to hindlimbs, HR, RR, BP stable," Tib calls out.

"Four gurneys! More hands, now!" Bones shouts out the hatch. She is rewarded with the whining of the grav-gurneys and the thundering of feet as they ascend up the ramp. Tib takes over directing the extra assistance.

"We've got assisted respiration," Linta says. Bones withdraws the needle and pulls the robes further open, gaping them well past his waist. He's nude beneath the robes. She taps his distended abdomen. It wobbles.

"Ascites!" Bones says. "I need to know what's going on in there _now_ , get him up we need the bioscanner!" Security personnel leap to obey.

"Wait! Fracture to C6 to C7, neck brace!" Linta yells, and the helping hands immediately stop. Tib thrusts the neck brace into Linta's grasp and Bones moves to hold the head and neck stable while she carefully slides the bands beneath. She clamps it shut.

"Right, on three, we lift and get him onto the gurney," Bones says, keeping careful hold of the man's head. Four security personnel dive in and clench their fingers in the man's robes, one on each corner. "Right. One, two, three!" The lift is seamless. Linta keeps the oxygen tubing clear, and the man is deposited on the first of the grav gurneys.

"Dart, load up and send along in triage, I want char-grill naked and in bacta _now_."

"Confirmed char-grill loaded, mine for stripping and bacta," Dart replies. "Dirty mo your second, short-stack third, human wookie to nurse for blaster."

"Confirmed," Bones says. "Push!" she tells the security personnel and they pelt down the ramp at full tilt.

* * *

 **Endotracheal tube** \- oral breathing tube.

 **Laryngoscope** \- looks a bit like the forceps they stick up your hoohaa but curved to go down the throat, for visual inspection of larynx and placement of endotracheal tube.

 **Auscultation** \- listening (to anything) with the stethoscope.

 **BP** \- blood pressure. First number is the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats (so the pressure against which the heart must pump), the second is the pressure in the arteries between heart beats (so the pressure at which the heart fills).

 **Cyanotic mucous membranes** \- mucous membranes are our favourite thing to check because they tell us a LOT and QUICKLY. Cyanotic mucous membranes are blue mucous membranes, indicating a low oxygen saturation in the tissues.

 **CRT** \- capillary refill time. This is when you push on the gum and lift your finger to watch how quickly the white-bleached finger indentation fills. This is a quick gauge for circulation - the faster it fills, the harder or faster the blood is being pumped around the body. The rule of thumb (for animals at least) is CRT of less than 2 seconds is adequate, CRT around 1 is optimal. Any slower than 2 and you start worrying about circulatory issues.

 **Intubating** \- sticking an endotracheal tube into the trachea to assist with breathing.

 **Pneumothorax** \- fluid in the pleural cavity between the lungs and the internal thoracic wall. Our bodies are crazy hax. We have visceral pleura lining the outside of our lungs and parietal pleura lining the inside of our thoracic cavity. These two pleura are separated and lubricated by a very thin layer of fluid. This allows the tissue of our lungs and thoracic cavities to slide against each other during inhalation and exhalation. Things get very bad when you have anything ELSE between those two layers, like fluid. Suddenly it starts getting very hard to breathe.

 **Thoracocentesis** \- is, in this case, an emergency procedure where you stick a needle into the pleural space (being very careful NOT to hit the lung) to remove the other substance in the pleural space and to make it easier for the animal (or in this case, human) to breathe.

 **Intercostal space** \- the space between ribs. So the first intercostal space will be the space between the first and second ribs, etc.

 **Haemothorax** \- blood in the pleural space / thoracic cavity.

 **Blast injuries** \- see next chapter.

 **TBI** \- total body involvement. This is how much of the body in its entirety is covered in burns.

 **Facial involvement at one, two, three** \- first, second and third degree burns to the face.

 **Hand involvement at three** \- third degree burns to the hands.

 **T10 to L5** \- thoracic vertebrae 10-13 and lumbar vertebrae 1-5 - basically all his mid back.

 **HR** \- heart rate.

 **RR** \- respiratory rate.

 **Assisted respiration** \- basically breathing for him.

 **Ascites** \- fluid in the abdominal cavity.

 **C6 to C7** \- cervical vertebrae 6 and 7, so lower neck.

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** This one's really jargon heavy, because I like to sound more photosynthesis :D

WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SURGICAL PROCEDURES AHEAD! NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART! LOTS OF BLOOD! Also I'm pretty sure you can't actually perform this procedure from a midline incision, given the location of the organ involved, so I'm claiming creative license on that.

Glossary at the end, in order of how it appears in the fic. (Shit the glossary is huge. Sorry guys, it should start shortening up in the future chapters.)

 **Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

* * *

"Pen, have crash cart ready. Five incoming. Blast damage emergency. Primary, secondary, tertiary suspected – haemothorax, ascites. Artificial respiration, one hundred percent oxygen, HR fourteen, BP thirty over ten, fracture to C6 to C7, suspect contusion or fracture to facial bones including nose. Prep bioscanner over table one. Prep bacta tank one for full immersion at twenty four hours.

"Next, Dart, burn emergency, third degree, suspect burns to thirty percent TBI minimum, no respiratory involvement, facial involvement at one, two, three, hand involvement at three. Get ready to strip fabric, prep bacta tank two, full immersion at twelve hours.

"Next, Bones, multiple fractures T10 to L5, to left clav, left ribs three and four, right rib nine, blaster to right shoulder. Prep bioscanner over table six. Prep bacta tank three, full immersion at twelve hours.

"Next, Bones, ischaemic left leg, blaster to left hip. Prep bioscanner over table eight. Prep bacta tank four, full immersion at three hours.

"Next, nurse, blaster to left shoulder, hip. Prep bioscanner over table three. Prep bacta tank five, full immersion at two hours."

"Confirm. Crash cart ready. Blast damage. Bio table one. Bacta tank one at two four. Burn. Bacta tank two at one two. T10 to L5 fractures. Bio table six. Bacta tank three at one two. Left leg. Bio table eight. Bacta tank four at three. Blaster. Bio table three. Bacta tank five at two. Request ETA and order," Pen replies.

"Advise ETA is three, order is blast, burn, spine, leg, blaster," Linta replies.

Bones can hear the whining of another grav gurney behind them, the thumping of boots on metal, and a voice saying "I'm fine, really, it's not that bad". That must be the char-grilled pilot.

"Fucking not that bad," Bones snarls under her breath.

"Poor lad isn't going to like it when the nerve endings start up again," Linta comments. Bones grunts. They round the corner to med room eight, and Bones thanks her lucky stars her nurses are smart, because med room eight has all the toys.

They're going to need them.

Pen's hands replace one of the security personnel's hands at the head of the gurney. Between Pen and Linta, they guide the grav gurney to table one and slam down the side railings.

"We slide on three," Bones says, taking hold of the oxygen tubing in one hand and the back of the man's head in the other. "One, two, three!" Linta and Pen lift the man by his robes and slide him onto table one. Pen whips around and moves the grav gurney to the edge of the room, out of the way, as Linta takes back over the oxygen and Bones cranks down the bioscanner.

"Shit shit shit," Bones growls. "Pulmonary edema, hemoabdomen, ah fuck it's the spleen. Fractured C6 to C7, zygoma, nose, frontal, clavicle, burst tympanic membrane, suspected damage to cochlea."

"Five credits say it's blood," Linta says.

"I'm not taking that, it's blast injury, of course it's going to be goddamn blood," Bones replies. "He'll manage on the oxygen if we can get his BP up. I'm scrubbing in. I need suction, and get me the slice-and-dice kit, because that banthafucker is coming out."

"I'm fine, really!" the pilot says as his biobed comes into the room. Bones pays him no mind and continues her scrub-in.

"Sterile zone!" she calls as she gowns and gloves up. Pen hauls a wheeled table up and unwraps the external wrap of a large med kit. Starts scrubbing down the abdominal midline. "Splenic artery and vein, short gastric arteries cranial, goddamn pancreas too, fuck spleens." Linta jabs a hypospray against the man's neck. Unclips the capsule, clips in a new one, and jabs him again. "Get a catheter into him. The second I've tied off these fucking vessels you hit him with crystalloids."

Pen hands Linta the needle and kit, then hauls over the fluid pump and several bags of crystalloids.

"Catheter in, flush clear," Linta calls.

"Going in, get me suction!" Bones clips on the scalpel blade. With great care, she slices through the epidermis just below the xyphoid cartilage of the sternum, straight down the midline to nearly the umbilicus. She uses tissue forceps to carefully grip the linea alba of the rectus abdominus muscle beneath and lift it away from the abdominal cavity. She punctures it with her scalpel blade.

The suction tubing arrives just in time to suck up the mess of blood that pours from the tiny hole. She sets aside her scalpel blade and picks up her scissors, and begins opening the abdominal cavity in its fullness. Pen continues the suction as blood bubbles up to spill over pale flesh.

Once the cavity is fully opened, Bones sets her scissors to one side.

"What are you doing?" comes the gravelly voice of the human wookie. Bones ignores him and shoves her hand in, feeling around for the splenophrenic ligament to begin to tear down. "What are you doing?" the voice repeats, higher, more frantic this time.

"Shut up and sit down," Bones snaps, fingers punching their way through ligamentous material. Her hand slides down the convex surface of the spleen to find the colon and much shorter splenocolic ligament. Her eyes stare at nothing as she focuses all her attention to her gloved fingers.

"Really I'm fi – OW," comes the voice of the singed pilot from the back of the room. Separating burnt fabric and skin is neither an easy, nor a painless process. Dart hacks great swathes of clothing off.

"Two big bore IV lines, anywhere you can stick them in him, give him crystalloids, I want one litre in him ASAP, someone run the calculation and get the maintenance rate set up," Bones shouts across the bay. Linta picks up her communicator.

"Davith and Jolan to med room eight," she barks.

"Confirm, Davith and Jolan to med room eight," her communicator spits out. The two young men arrive after dirty mo's stretcher. "Dirty mo to table six extreme care multiple thoracolumbar vertebral fractures, get bioscanner up, Jolan stay. Davith to Dart, I need two big bore IVs into burns patient hooked up to crystalloids, one litre STAT. Calculate maintenance rate for full immersion in bacta tank two at one two hours," Linta barks at the nurses. They move.

Bones' fingers find the left kidney, nestled into the spleen's inferior pole, and begins to break apart the splenorenal ligament. Pen is hooking the midline incision open to allow for a greater visual window. She's not doing a damn splenectomy blind.

She hears the whine of the last grav gurney as short-stack with the bung leg is brought in and set to one side. "Jolan, bioscan shorty, left leg, confirm vessel and nerve integrity," Linta says.

"Ow!" the pilot howls.

"Why isn't he anaesthetised!" Bones yells.

"He's refusing!" Dart yells back.

"Fuck," Bones shouts and bares her teeth at the spleen from behind her mask. Linta diverts herself from dirty mo's bioscanner to the pilot, extra crispy. There's murmuring. She thinks she hears a mantra.

"I am the pilot, I am the pilot, I am the pilot." Whatever that means.

"Administering dipill at four mills per kilo, maximum ten mills per kilo," Linta calls. "Advise conergin inadvisable in current mental state."

"I am the pilot, I am the pilot, I am the pilot."

Bones manoeuvres the spleen to midline. "I need more suction," she says, and Pen is right there, scooping up the blood oozing from everywhere on the damn thing. "Well fuck me sideways and call me Sandy, I ain't never seen a spleen like this. I want it preserved for posterity."

"That's no spleen, that's the contents of a jam jar," Linta comments as she swings past. Bones snorts into her mask. She triple clamps off the short gastric arteries and sutures them off, severing the end and leaving the last clamp on, and pulls the spleen more midline.

"I am … the pilot … I am the pilot..."

She carefully inserts her forceps into the gastrosplenic ligament, tight to the splenic hilum. The last thing she wants to do is damage the tail of the pancreas. That gets messy really quickly. She blunt dissects out the splenic artery and vein. Grabs her clamps. Spaces them out: three on the splenic artery, three on the splenic vein. She grabs her needle and thickest, nonabsorbable suture material and sets to work.

A few minutes later she has the spleen out and is very very carefully checking her work for bleeders. Pen cleans the area with the suction tube. Bones grasps the edge of the gastrosplenic ligament and releases her clamp on the end of the splenic vein, first. Nothing. She then releases the clamp on the end of the splenic artery. Still nothing.

"Thank fuck," she says. She then clamps onto the edge of the mesentery holding the short gastric arteries and unclamps the severed end of those, and still, no bleeding. She shoves a swab gauze inside the abdominal cavity and wipes it around. It comes out thick with blood. She repeats the procedure with fresh swabs until they (eventually) start coming out nearly dry, waits a few seconds, and wipes again. "No bleeders, crystalloids in now, clear to close," she says, and Linta opens the fluid floodgates.

"Confirm crystalloids," Linta says.

"I'm … the pilot … the pilot … the pilot."

Bones hands over to Pen for the suturing and begins to scrub out. "Intramuscular, subcutaneous and cutaneous please," she says. Pen is already several stitches into stitching up the relatively avascular linea alba.

"Confirm intramuscular, subcutaneous, cutaneous," Pen replies.

"Confirm BP increasing, fourty over twenty," Linta calls.

"Linta, set and strap his nose while Pen's closing. Once he's closed, get him in the bacta tank and onto packed RBCs."

"Confirm, set nose, bacta tank, packed RBC," Linta replies.

"Good. Jolan, brief me on dirty mo," Bones says.

"I'm … the … pilot."

* * *

 **Crash cart** \- defibrilator and various stimulants (like adrenaline) to get things going again.

 **Blast damage, primary, secondary, tertiary** \- blast damage is a nasty one. Primary damage is damage sustained from the shock wave itself, such as burst eardrums, damage to lungs, and any hollow internal organs. Secondary damage is damage sustained from things flying places from the explosion, like shrapnel. Tertiary damage is damage sustained from the displacement of air making you move, like being thrown into a wall, or into the ground.

 **Haemothorax** \- blood in the thorax (see pneumothorax in last chapter for more detail).

 **Ascites** \- fluid in the abdomen.

 **HR** \- heart rate.

 **BP** \- blood pressure (see last chapter BP for more detail).

 **C6 to C7** \- cervical vertebrae 6 and 7, in the lower neck.

 **Contusion** \- area where capillaries have ruptured. You can have bone bruises. They suck.

 **Fracture** \- break of any kind.

 **TBI** \- total body involvement, relating to how much of the body is burnt.

 **Facial involvement at one, two,** **three** \- first, second and third degree burns to the face.

 **Hand involvement at three** \- third degree burns to the hand.

 **T10 to L5** \- thoracic vertebrae 10-13 and lumbar vertebrae 1-5. This is mid-lower back.

 **Ischaemic** \- lack of blood circulation, typically indicated by total whiteness of the skin. This is different and distinct to cyanotic, which is lack of oxygen. You can have full blood circulation with very little oxygen, and you can have poor blood circulation with lots of oxygen.

 **Pulmonary edema** \- fluid IN the lungs. This is typically in the little alveoli, or air sacs, that are the site of gas exchange in the lung. Fluid in these prevents oxygen from being passed into circulating blood, and prevents carbondioxide from being passed out of circulating blood.

 **Hemoabdomen** \- blood in the abdomen.

 **Spleen** \- that annoying mofo that likes to rupture and bleeds all over the place. Also an important part of your immune system.

 **Zygoma** \- zygomatic arch, or Those Things We All Stare At When Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston Appear On The Screen (and I'm not talking about their crotch bulges, either). Cheekbones.

 **Frontal** \- frontal bone.

 **Clavicle** \- collarbone.

 **Tympanic membrane** \- ear drum.

 **Cochlea** \- the spiral cavity in the inner ear that contains the organ that sends nerve impulses in response to sound waves. Kinda important to the whole hearing thing.

 **Splenic artery and vein** \- these are the main blood vessels to the spleen, and they're huuuuuuuuuge. They go into the middle of the concave surface of the spleen, known as the 'splenic hilum'.

 **Short gastric arteries** \- these are arterial branches off the greater curvature of the stomach that join onto the spleen and provide it with blood.

 **Cranial** \- towards the head.

 **Pancreas** \- that really annoying organ that sits up right close to the spleen but is really important because pancreatic enzymes help you digest stuff.

 **Catheter** \- long-term intra-venous line. It involves a plastic tube within a long needle that sits in the vein to enable venous delivery of drugs or fluids.

 **Crystalloids** \- really useful IV fluid that, according to my friend the vet nurse, is what you'd give in this situation. I haven't yet gone over fluid therapy and she's just done emergency fluid therapy. I'm still convinced this part of medicine is magic. It doesn't impact on clotting but helps replace blood volume lost.

 **Xyphoid cartilage** \- cartilage flap at the end of the sternum.

 **Umbilicus** \- fancy-pants word for belly button.

 **Linea alba** \- avascular (no blood vessels), non-innervated (no nerves) connective tissue between the two rectus abdominus muscles (the ones that turn into a six or eight pack when you work out).

 **Rectus abdominus muscle** \- the six pack muscles.

 **Splenophrenic ligament** \- ligament between the spleen and the diaphragm.

 **Splenocolic ligament** \- ligament between the spleen and the colon (large intestine).

 **Big bore IV lines** \- when you really want to dump fluids in fast, you get the wide lines (or 'big bore') out.

 **Thoracolumbar** \- thorax and lumbar (more or less).

 **STAT** \- fukken yesterday.

 **Inferior pole** \- the bottom bit of the spleen.

 **Splenorenal ligament** \- ligament between the spleen and the left kidney.

 **Splenectomy** \- spleen removal.

 **Dipill** \- Star Wars sedative (relaxes them).

 **Conergin** \- Star Wars general anaesthetic (knocks them out).

 **Blunt dissection** \- using force, rather than cutting, to separate or break something down.

 **Mesentery** \- A single layer of tissue that encloses a lot of the abdominal organs. It gets a bit more complicated than that, but that's it in a nutshell.

 **Intramuscular, subcutaneous, and cutaneous** \- stitch up the muscle, stitch up the tissue between muscle and skin, stitch up the skin.

 **Packed RBCs** \- packed red blood cells to replace what's been lost. Once again, vet nurse suggested this, and I'm going with 'magic'.

* * *

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	4. Chapter 4

**AN:** I have to add a little note here.

Bones has the bed-side manner of a womp rat. Linta knows this. Linta tries to keep Bones from being bed-side, unless Linta does not like the person in the bed, then she lets Bones be bed-side. No, really. Take this as a warning. SHE'S REALLY NOT GOOD!

ALSO WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF BURNS AND AMPUTATION! I'm also pretty sure I forgot some blood vessels so ... CREATIVE LICENSE!

I've also tried capitalising nicknames. I may have missed some. Apologies.

Glossary at the end, as always.

 **Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

* * *

Bones moves to table six, where Dirty Mo and his pinched eyes look up at her. "He needs more analgesic," she says, and Jolan hands her the hypospray and capsule. She dials it and punches it into his neck. The man flinches.

"HR, RR, BP stable in normal range, don't ask me how. T10 to T12 have spiderweb fractures, no stabilisation needed. T13 to L3 have have comminuted fractures to spinous processes. L1 and L2 have stable fractures to transverse processes. L4 and L5 have spiderweb fractures to spinous, transverse, and body. Stable fracture on left clavicle, left ribs three and four, right rib nine. Blaster to right shoulder," Jolan rattles off. Bones casts her eye over the bioscanner.

"You're a fucking miracle, Mo-face, you may yet walk," she says down at the man. His eyes squeeze shut briefly. There's a gusty exhale from table eight, where bung-leg short-stack is propped up on pillows. "Give me stats on the leg." She heads over to extra crispy.

"...the pilot..." he says. He sits on the bed, hands held loosely in front of him. He is naked, or at least, most of him is. His right side but for his arms and his medial right calf and lower thigh are stripped bare. His left side is a mess of burnt flesh and fabric. He has one IV line in his left ankle. The other IV line is in his right femoral vein, right up in his bared groin.

"How the fuck did he fly that ship?" Bones breathes. The man's hands are covered in thickened third degree burns. His arms are slowly being peeled of fabric, skin clinging to the fibres even as it's being separated.

"Beats me," Dart growls as he slowly, carefully, achingly peels the pilot's shirt away from his left torso.

"Shit," she says as she takes in the utter devastation that is the left side of his face. His left ear is gone. Grasping fingers of burn creep along his throat, down his mandible and towards his nose. Both eyebrows are well and truly singed off, as is half his hair. The rest will need to be shaved. If he had any other facial hair, it is long gone now. "You're another fucking miracle, you must have been exhaling as the blast hit," she says.

He looks up at her, eyes wide and blank and so terrified. "I'm the pilot," he says. The skin pulls tight over his lips. Bones' face pinches.

"We know, buddy, you're the pilot," she says. His eyes spark, shutter, go distant once more. He looks past her.

"I'm the pilot," he murmurs.

"When he's in bacta I want a detailed bioscan done of his brain, I want to know what's going on in there," Bones says.

"Confirm, bioscan of brain during bacta," Dart says, working down the man's left hip. The arms are nearly scraped clean of fabric. Davith's work.

Linta manoeuvres the now naked blast patient into bacta tank one. This room has the swanky set up where the bacta tanks lift up and hold horizontally so the tables can slide in to easily move fragile conditioned patients into and out of the bacta tanks. Human Wookie hovers anxiously nearby. "I thought I told you to sit," Bones growls at him. He ignores her, or perhaps simply does not hear her. Her eyebrow twitches.

"Marm," Jolan says. "No blood or nerve supply past mid-femur." Bones takes a moment to breathe instead of swear.

"How bad is it?"

"Tissue is too far gone," Jolan replies.

"Arse," she growls. "Prep bacta tank four at six hour. Get me a fucking bone saw."

"What," Short-Stack says. She's pretty sure Dirty Mo makes a noise that quickly turns into a whimper of pain.

"Put him out and intubate, he's in next," Bones says, gesturing to table six. "That's not going to heal, regardless of how much blood we pump into it. You want to die with your leg rotting off or you want a prosthetic that can fire frikkin lazerbeams?" she directs at Short-Stack. There's a hiss of a hypospray depressing and a noise of protest from table six. The girl on table eight looks horrified. Bones takes a deep breath. Bed-side manner was never her forte. One of the reasons why she never got into sapient species medicine. And, oh, look how well that turned out for her. She sends a mental glower in the vague direction of Mon Mothma. "The tissues in your leg haven't received any blood," she says. "It's dying, and unless I remove the dying tissue, so will you." The girl squares her shoulders and juts her chin.

"Don't put me out," she says. Bones bares her teeth at her in a facsimile of a grin.

"Even with nerve loss, it's going to hurt," she says. The girl sets her chin more firmly and her eyes burn.

"Don't put me out," she repeats.

"Very well, short-stuff, let me make one side of you shorter," Bones says. The girl bares her teeth back at her.

Jolan leaps into action as Bones begins her scrub in again. He cuts off the pant leg below the tourniquet and whips down the bioscanner. Grabs a mobile table, drops a small kit and a much larger kit on it, and starts to scrub the op site. He grabs a pen and marks a line, after further consultation with the bioscanner.

"Optimum site identified. This is above the nerve and vessel loss, but below the tourniquet. Blaster damage only cranial to tourniquet," Jolan says. Thank the Force for good nurses. She finishes her scrub up.

"Spinal is out and intubated, stats stable," Linta calls.

Bones turns to the girl on the table, now lying down and looking up at the ceiling, fingers clamped white-knuckle tight on the edges. "One benefit to having severed nerves is you're not actually going to feel most of this. The downside is we're dealing with bone, and that always hurts." She eyeballs the leg, opens the smaller pouch, and picks out her scalpel. "Dial her another analgesic." Jolan scrambles to obey. She digs her blade into white flesh and begins a clean slice around the leg. No blood wells up, and Bones shudders. It's too much like an autopsy for her liking. She inserts two cuts cranially along the anterior and posterior medial aspects almost to the marked line, and then continues around the leg laterally. She removes the excess lateral skin and reflects back the saved (and still attached) medial skin. The great and the lateral accessory saphenous veins are just deep to the skin. They're severed further down the leg, after the medial accessory saphenous bifurcation. She clamps and ligates them.

She cuts the rectus femoris mid-way down the thigh and reflects it back, searching for the cranial stump of the femoral artery and vein. Finds them, clamps them, and ligates them tightly. Finds, and ties off the deep femoral. Cuts the muscle right to the bone. Peels everything back hard up past the line.

The girl makes no noise.

"RR one hundred, HR one fourty, BP one twenty over eighty," Jolan reads out.

"This is going to hurt," Bones says, and activates the vibro-saw. Jolan places one hand on the girl's thigh, above the tourniquet, his fingers digging into flesh there. The other hand goes on the leg. It takes her two slices to get through the whole femur. This time the girl makes a noise. Strangled screams through pinched shut lips. Jolan removes the leg. "Worst part's over. Now it's just removing the dead tissue and covering it up with skin."

It's the work of only a few minutes to cut back dead and dying muscle. Jolan undoes the tourniquet – a bantha-hide belt double wrapped around the upper thigh – just enough to permit some blood flow past it.

"Bleeders?" he asks. She pulls out the stubs of vessels and checks each one.

"None, good to release," she says. The girl hisses through her teeth as blood flows to what little tissue is left of her legs that she can feel. Bones pulls the spare flap of medial thigh skin over the now slowly bleeding stump. Adjusts it minutely. Takes the scissors to it and evens off the edges so they align better with the existing skin. "I'll do this one, Jolan. Linta, prep spinal, get the nanoscaffolds out and scrub in, I'm going to need two pairs of hands for that," Bones says.

"Confirm, prep spinal, nanoscaffolds, scrub in," Linta repeats.

Bones clips toothed forceps to the edges of the skin to keep them stable and whips out her subcutaneous absorbable suture material. This is the time consuming bit. Picking up each bit of subcutaneous tissue on either side of the wound and carefully tightening the last stitch in a simple continuous stitch. By the time she's tied off the end, Linta has prepped spinal's entire back, has all the kit they could possibly need next to his table, and has scrubbed in.

"Jolan, you finish off with interrupted cruciates, I'm scrubbing in for reconstruction," Bones says with a painfully cheerful lilt to her voice.

"Confirm, interrupted cruciates, then bacta tank," Jolan says and steps up, taking a needle, suture material and scissors. He sets to work with neat cross stitches topped off with knots as Bones scrubs out, and then straight back in again.

Linta and Bones share a look. "I think we're going to need a cargo ship full of bantha shit to properly do this one justice," Linta says cheerfully.

* * *

 **Analgesic** \- pain relief. Nothing to do with anal at all. (Sorry)

 **HR** \- heart rate  
 **RR** \- respiratory rate  
 **BP** \- blood pressure

 **Spiderweb fractures** \- really thin breaks in the bone that don't always go all the way through and can usually heal without needing to tutu with the bone.

 **Comminuted fractures** \- where a fracture site has 3+ complete breaks through the bone. This is not fun, and usually requires a lot of pins and metal.

 **Spinous process** \- the bit of the vertebra that sticks out your back. So when you're seeing someone's backbone under their skin, that's the spinous process of their vertebra.

 **Transverse process** \- these are the bits of the vertebra that stick out the side of each vertebra.

 **Body** \- this is the main 'body' of the vertebra, which articulate with each other. You've got the squishy disks between the body of each vertebra so there is some cushioning, because bone on bone DOESN'T work.

 **Stable fracture** \- clean break through, the bones are aligned though so as long as you strap it up good and the break edges don't shift, you don't have to re-set the bone.

 **Medial** \- towards the midline of the body (so your inside leg, inside upper arm, etc).

 **Lateral** \- away from the midline of the body (so your outside leg, outside upper arm, etc).

 **Mandible** \- jaw bone.

 **Femur** \- thigh bone.

 **Intubate** \- sticking in a breathing tube. This is super important for surgeries, where anaesthetics depress breathing, so oxygen needs to be supplied to ensure adequate blood oxygen saturation.

 **Cranial** \- towards the head.

 **Anterior** \- towards the front.  
 **Posterior** \- towards the back.  
 **Cranially along the anterior and posterior medial aspects** \- this is a complicated way of saying she makes a cut up the front inside and the back inside leg, keeping most of the inside leg tissue.

 **Reflects** \- folds back. Yes, we really do use fancy words to describe folding back tissue.

 **Great, Lateral Accessory and Medial Accessory Saphenous veins** \- superficial (so between the skin and the muscle) veins that run along the front / middle aspect of the thigh. The lateral accessory saphenous vein is a branch off the great - it runs laterally towards the back of the thigh. The medial accessory saphenous vein is a branch further down the track - it runs medially towards the back of the thigh.

 **Bifurcation** \- split / branch / fork. WE LOVE FANCY WORDS YES WE DO!

 **Ligate** \- tie up a blood vessel.

 **Rectus femoris** \- big muscle along the front of your thigh.

 **Femoral artery and vein -** REALLY fucking BIG blood vessels that you will bleed out of very very quickly.

 **Deep femoral** \- a branch of the femoral artery that runs beneath a lot of muscles.

 **Simple continuous stitch** \- like it says, it's simple and it's continuous, and it's suitable for suturing up subcutaneous tissue. There's no muscle here to stitch, so there's no need to stitch that up. Suturing up the subcutaneous tissue just helps to keep the epidermis / cutaneous tissue / skin together (different words for the same thing, WELCOME TO ANATOMY WHERE THE HEPATOPANCREATIC HOLE INTO THE SMALL INTESTINE IS ALSO CALLED THE AMPULLA OF VATER, AND YOU HAVE SEVEN DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE SAME FUCKING MUSCLE).

 **Interrupted cruciates** \- this is a really good way of keeping skin together. This is used for cutaneous suturing - you are basically making individual cross-shaped stitches with knots tied on top. You don't use continuous stitch for cutaneous sutures because if one pops, goodbye everything. A lot of people use simple interrupted stitches. I just like cruciates. They take a bit longer to do, but they hold more skin together.

* * *

 _Like it? Love it? Review it!_


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:** Okay we're starting to get a little lighter on the jargon here.

In fact, so much so that I don't think I need a glossary!

Still with the bedside manner of a womp rat.

 **Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

* * *

It takes eight hours to put the jigsaw that is Baby Fuzz's vertebrae back together. Human Wookie and Shorter-Stack have both gone through their first bacta tank cycle. Shorter-Stack watches the last of the operation with knife-sharp eyes. Human Wookie stands vigil next to Splenectomy's tank, his body angled to keep both the man and the majority of the room in his vision at all times.

Dart rests his head against Extra Crispy's tank and possibly cries a little. Bones is quite sure the pilot is still saying "I'm the pilot" into the breathing apparatus.

He can't seem to stop.

At some stage during the op her communicator had buzzed, but Jolan had taken it and brushed them off. Now, with the last of her patients in the bacta tank, Bones sits (at last, her legs scream). She stares at her hands. Past her hands, to the floor. A mug appears.

"Caf," Linta says. Her fingers move to grab the mug and she sucks half of it down in one go.

"I knew I kept you 'round for a reason," Bones grumbles, clutching her precious black goo close to her chest. She looks up and catches the eye of Shorter-stack. "So," she drawls. "How'd this all happen?" The girl's jaw clenches.

"A few explosions here and there," she replies. Bones' eyes narrow.

"No shit," she says. "Some light shooting, too?" The girl nods. Her eyes are hard. Bones sighs and runs a hand down her face. Takes another sip of her coffee.

"Well, you're going to be spending a lot of time in my domain over the next few weeks, the lot of you, so hit me with names," she says.

The girl blinks. The tension drips out of her shoulders.

It's quiet in the med room now. Just the comforting beep beep of multiple heart monitors and the hiss of respirators. The murmur of the nurses as they pour over datapads.

"I'm Jyn," she finally says. "Jyn Erso."

"Nice to meet you, Jyn. I'm Bones," she replies and tries for a friendly smile. She's not sure how well it goes, but Jyn doesn't recoil in fear so she assumes it's close enough to friendly to be acceptable.

As it turns out, Baby Fuzz is a Rebel Alliance Captain by the name of Cassian Andor. Clearly not usually stationed at Alliance HQ, or, if he was, not normally one to get injured. Or special attention.

Only special people got sent to Bones.

They're part of Rogue One. She remembers that much. The pilot, Extra Crispy, is an Imperial defector by the name of Bodhi Rook. Apparently he came like that, broken in the head, quietly repeating "I am the pilot" at odd times. Twitching at silence. Bones files that away for future investigation.

Human Wookie and Splenectomy are from NiJedha (that was), being one Baze Malbus and Chirrut Îmwe respectively. Baze doesn't talk. Bones watches him.

They had gone to Scarif to recover plans for the Death Star, the planet killer, the great new Imperial weapon. They'd succeeded. The plans had been transmitted to the Rebel Alliance ships in orbit, and somehow, Bodhi had managed to steal an Imperial Delta-class ship, pick them up, and get them off the planet and into hyperspace just in time to avoid death by Death Star.

"Bit on the nose, that name," Linta comments. "I mean, couldn't they have thought of something a bit less … blatant?"

"Well at least you know what it does," Bones replies. "It's a star for death-ing things." Baze and Jyn look at her incredulously.

"Once she's not in med-brain mode it's all gone," Linta explains. Bones shoots her a glare, quaffs the last of her caf, and stalks over to Baze.

"I know my nurses have tended to your blaster wounds, but I'd like to have a quick look at you myself before I call it a night," she says. He looks down at her but nods. She pushes his shirt to the side, exposing freshly pinked scar tissue splashed across his clavicle. Pushes it further to examine the edges and probe the tissue around it. Satisfied the flesh is suitably solid, Bones pulls the shirt back to his neck, and lifts the hem of his shirt up. "I'm going to have to pull your pants down a bit to inspect the damage," she says. He grunts in reply. She grabs the waist of his pants and tugs it, exposing more pink scar tissue across his hip. She probes the area. Pulls the pants back up and lets the hem of his shirt fall.

"Touch your left index finger to my finger," she says. He lifts his arm and does so. "Now touch your nose," she says. He does so. She moves her finger to the left. "Repeat," she says. He does so. She moves her finger to the right. "Repeat," she says. He does so. "Good. Now hold my finger and squeeze as hard as you can," she says. He does so. "Good. Now hold your arm out front. I'm going to push down. I want you to hold your arm in exactly this spot." The exercises go on, testing each muscle group in turn. She then repeats this for his leg.

"I would discharge you, but I get the feeling you won't leave," Bones finally says. He looks down at her and his eyes soften. "That's fine, I'll keep you in for observation as long as Splenect – sorry, Chirrut – is here. We'll get you all some new clothes so you don't get any more sand in your arsecracks." Baze snorts.

"Right, ladies, gents, I'm out," Bones says, flicking a quick salute to her nurses. "Fuck off to sleep. I'll be back before anyone gets out of the tanks." She leaves to a chorus of "night, boss,".

She manages to sleep for less than three hours, most of it fitful. Eventually she gives up. Puts fresh scrubs on, a white lab coat, jams her feet into shoes and flips her stethoscope around her neck. She's at med room eight before she realises where her feet are taking her.

Dart is still there, watching the pilot. Bodhi. Bodhi Rook. Baze has sat down with his back pressed against the bottom of the bacta tank. Someone has given him new clothes. He clings to a staff.

Cassian is still in the bacta tank. His body has turned to face Jyn's bed. She's asleep, her own body tipped in his direction. Their arms seem to reach out towards one another. Bones makes a note of that. She'll move Jyn to a bed closer to the tank, where she can lie on her right and not apply pressure to her still healing stump.

She goes over to where Dart stands vigil over the pilot's pod.

"How's he doing?" she murmurs.

"Improving well," Dart replies, keeping his voice low. "Although he may be permanently deaf in his left ear. There is some burning to the area around the burst tympanic membrane. I'm not sure it will heal, even in the bacta tank." Bones nods. "He should still have some, if not all, tactile sensation in his fingers, but I'm not sure about the backs of his hands. The burns are extensive."

"He'll be relieved to know he is still the pilot," Bones says. She watches Bodhi's lips form the words beneath his breathing mask. His mantra. I am the pilot, I am the pilot, I am the pilot.

Dart lets out a shuddering sigh. "I think he's going to need a lot of bacta tank time. Probably a lot more than we will be allowed to give him."

"If anyone pressures you, or anyone else in here, you let me know," Bones says. "They're important enough people to get to me. They're important enough people to use bacta tank time on." Dart gives her a wobbly smile.

"Then I'd like to recommend seven days of once daily six hour treatments, followed by a week of once every other day two hour treatments as needed," Dart says.

"I think I will follow your recommendation, Dart. Please note it on his file. He can be discharged after the first week, but I don't want him out of this ward until we've managed to get at least another twenty four hours in the tank into him." Dart smiles, properly this time, and adds the treatment regime to the datapad in his hand.

"And finally, about the brain scans..." Dart begins, and the smile is gone once more. "I don't know what to make of them. All I can tell you is that they're abnormal. You'll need better kit than what we've got to run any further diagnostics." Bones raises her eyebrows. He hands her the datapad. She looks at the brain scans for a moment. Looks up at the pilot in bacta. Looks back down at the brain scans.

"This shit's whack. I don't know how the fuck he's functioning, let alone piloting. What the fuck does that?" she hisses.

"I don't know," Dart whispers back. "What I do know is the bacta won't be able to do a damn thing, and neither can we."

"We don't have any neuro specialists on tap, do we?"

"Not even a psychologist," Dart replies.

"Fuck." Bones breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. "I'll keep an eye on him. Raise this with Linta as well, she needs to know. She's better at this -" Bones gestures to the pilot "- bedsidey helpy thing than I am," she finishes off lamely.

"I'll give her his read outs as soon as she's up and about. He's due out in a few minutes, then we'll need to bandage him up. Would you like to help?" he asks. Bones huffs a laugh.

"And leave you with all the fun of creating a walking mummy? No way. Besides, we're going to need to do a lot of bandaging on this boy, and many hands make light work," she says. "I can't even get him any pants until he's a bit more recovered, poor lad." Dart begins to gather up the cut-your-own-size bacta gauze, tape, and bandage wrap. "He's a mess," Bones says, placing a hand against the glass of his tank. "I still don't know how he managed to pilot that ship."

The tank hisses and begins the draining process. They'd had to put him in totally nude, foregoing the usual 'bacta nappies' in favour of healing the third degree burns splattered all down his left side, hip, and lateral leg. He starts to twitch. Bones narrows her eyes.

"Dart, hit the emergency evac, now," she says just as the pilot's hand crashes into the glass. Dart leaps to the panel and the bacta drops out. The glass lifts and Bones is there, shoving her hands under his armpits to stop him from falling. She gets an elbow to her nose for her troubles, but she hangs on.

"Hey, hey, Bodhi, you're the pilot, it's okay," she says, hauling him bodily away from the bacta tank and under the shower. The pilot has ripped the breather from his face and is taking wide-mouthed gasps. His eyes are far-seeing, lids peeled back to show the whites all around his pupil. "It's okay, Bodhi, you're the pilot, you're safe." Dart turns the water on. Bones holds the pilot under the spray, turning him around so it hits the back of his now bald head and not his burnt ear. Or his face. It wouldn't do to have him aspirate water at this stage in the game.

"I'm the pilot," he mumbles. His hands go limp at his side.

"You're the pilot," she reaffirms as she gets the shower spray in her face and eyes. "You're the pilot." She blinks the water away. Slowly removes her hands from his armpits. He stays standing under the spray. She slicks her hair back out of her face and grimaces when she realises her hands are covered in bacta, and now her hair is.

"Shit," she says and scrabbles for a piece of gauze. He's also ripped out his femoral IV line. She clamps her thumb over gauze onto the hole in his thigh. "Sorry about this, Bodhi," she says, looking up at him. He flushes as he stares down at her. "You pulled out your IV line, and I can't ask you to hold pressure on this yourself. You've got very badly burnt hands right now."

He opens his mouth. Closes it again. Clenches his jaw and looks straight ahead while the flush climbs the right side of his neck and face. And, yep, it also spreads to his chest.

"And, er, hi," Bones says, readjusting her hands so she can apply more pressure to the site without needing to grip his upper thigh quite as much. "I'm Bones. I'm your treating physician here at the Alliance base on Yavin Four. You piloted the ship that brought you and your friends back to HQ and saved their lives by getting them here so quickly." He nods along with her, eyes carefully locked on the wall behind her.

"Yes," he says. "I know, I did it." He turns around to look. Baze stares back. Nods. Jyn watches him from her bed. "We all made it then?" his head snaps back to focus intently on Bones. "Chirrut is okay?"

"You made it here in time. At this stage, we're confident Chirrut will make an operational recovery. If we're lucky, he'll make a full one."

Bodhi shakes his head, raises his hand to touch his ear.

"Please don't touch the side of your head," Bones says, reaching her spare hand up to touch the unburned inside of his wrist. Bodhi's lips draw into a depreciating grin.

"I know, I lost my hearing in the blast," he says. His hand drops to his side again.

"Why don't we get you all cleaned up of bacta and you can tell me all about how you got here while we bandage you up, hey?" Bones says as Dart grabs some tape and slaps it on over the top of some more gauze to maintain pressure. She gently guides Bodhi back into the water spray. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, letting water run over his face and front. The bacta sloughs off. Bones shuts off the shower. "This way, please," she says, and he follows her to the nearest table. She pulls out a couple of towels and a loose butt-gaping hospital gown. Dart comes around the other side of the table and picks up a towel. She shucks off her lab coat, the arms and front now well soaked from water and bacta.

"We'll quickly pat dry you down and then you can get this hospital gown on. We're going to have to bandage you up and I can't give you any pants – even loose ones – until you've had a few more sessions in the bacta tank," Bones explains, beginning to gently pat down his hands. Dart starts at the feet. Bodhi flushes. He looks straight ahead, arms held very carefully so as not to pull the barely healing and very painful burns across his left shoulder and torso, as they pat him dry. Bones helps him slide the hospital gown over his burns. She leaves it gaping at the neck, but buttons up some of the back. She doesn't want to agitate the third degree burns to the left side of his neck and head.

"If you stand there, we'll get to work bandaging you up. So how'd you get these incredibly impressive burns?" she asks.

"They threw a grenade," he says. He looks at his fingers. The backs of his hands are twisted, melted flesh. The fronts are still blistered and sore. Everything is swollen. Cracks in his skin ooze. "So I picked it up and threw it back out." Bones stops, hands over the bacta gauze.

"That would explain it," she replies, evenly, carefully. Her fingers dig into the gauze as she picks it up. "Let's start with your hands, shall we?" she says lightly, holding up a pair of scissors and a small patch of gauze. "I'm going to put this on the back of your hand and then cut up around the fingers so I can wrap each finger from the top. I'll make two of these, so one goes on the back of your hand, and one goes on the front, and then we'll start turning you into a mummy." She smiles and Bodhi's lips twitch in what could almost be amusement.

They get to work.

Dart begins from the feet once more, slapping bacta gauze and taping it down on his lateral left leg and medial right knee and thigh. He segments the gauze at the joints, allowing some degree of mobility without pulling the gauze out of alignment. Works his way up Bodhi's hip - "I'm sorry for the tape in such an awkward place, but it needs to happen," - and up his torso.

Bones painstakingly wraps up each individual digit, first with gauze (using a bit of tape around the gauze to keep it in place), then with bandage wrap. She covers his arms with gauze, his shoulder. Finally, she works up his neck, mandible, across his cheek and lateral supraorbital ridge. Up and over his left ear. She carefully tapes the gauze in place across his zygomatic arch. It's over first degree burns, but they're considerably more healed, and these third degree need the treatment. They wrap up his torso and his arms. His left leg and his right knee and thigh. They leave his neck and shoulder clear of bandages.

Bodhi peers down at himself, sticking out from the hospital gown, and breathes what could almost be a chuckle. "I do look like a mummy, don't I?" he says.

"I'm quite pleased with my work," Bones says, taking a step back and dusting her hands on her scrubs. "And I don't know about you, but I'm pretty bloody hungry. I'll get some food delivered. Stew sound alright to you?" Bodhi looks up and nods.

"Haven't eaten in a while," he admits.

"We haven't had the time," Jyn replies. She's sitting up in her bed. Baze watches them over his knees.

"Stew and some bread it is. Jyn, you want some caf?" She shakes her head. "Baze?" He dismisses the suggestion with a flick of his fingers. "And sorry, Bodhi, you can have caf in a few days but I don't want to stress your kidneys right now." Bodhi shrugs, then winces.

She turns to Dart. "Could you get one of the privates to bring us some hot stew, ideally one of the ones with meat in it, and some bread, a caf for me and a whatever-you're-drinking-today for you." Dart nods and potters off to find his communicator. "It'll be here shortly."

"I didn't realise they did food delivery," Jyn comments. Bones bares her teeth in a smile.

"They do for med, when there are patients that need it. We have a fairly early discharge policy here, so most patients get their own food at the mess like everyone else," Bones says. "So when we put an order in, it's because we need it."

"They'll be down shortly," Dart says.

Bones hops up on the table behind her, legs dangling over the edge and swinging. "Fuck I forgot how cold these are," she says, looking down at the durasteel of the table.

"Yeah, we know," Jyn comments wryly. Bones shoots a glance her way but remains on the table. She turns her attention to the pilot who anxiously scans the room.

"Bodhi, I want you to stay standing and moving around slowly just until you've eaten and digested a bit, then we'll get you on your bed. I don't want you flexing and pulling those burns, so we'll lower you down straight and then get you up on the bed," Bones says. Bodhi watches her. Nods.

"Okay," he says. His eyes return to flitting over every available surface, analysing the contents of the room.

She doesn't say it out loud, but she certainly says a very emphatic shit in her head. She's not sure how much of the brain-mushing is to blame for this extreme level of anxiety – the poor man is practically vibrating out of his crispy skin with nerves.

She picks up the datapad assigned to recording the medical treatment of Bodhi Rook. Flicks through. "Okay, Bodhi, I'm going to give you some pain relief and then I'm going to give you a very light sedative," she says. Bodhi twitches and stares at her with wide eyes. "It's not going to make you slow or fuzzy," she says. "This is just to keep your heart rate and respiratory rate in check." He still flinches away from her when she picks up the hypospray and cannisters. She flattens her lips. "I'm pretty sure your friends would kill me if I did anything bad to you."

Bodhi glances at Baze and Jyn. His lips quirk. "I suppose you're right," he concedes. Bones clips the analgesic in and carefully depresses it into his neck. Shucks the analgesic cannister and clips in the dipill cannister. She dials it right down. 0.5mL per kg. Just enough to take the edge off, but not enough to really slow him down. He watches her carefully as she depresses this one into his neck as well. She puts the hypospray and cannisters away in the cupboard. Hops back up on the table beside Bodhi.

Dart opens the door and accepts the trolley of food, pulling it carefully into the room and shutting the door behind him. Baze clambers to his feet and accepts the bowl of thick stew. Grabs a bread roll and takes a bite. Humms his pleasure. Sits back down with his back against the bacta tank.

Jyn accepts her bowl stew and bread roll. She blows on the stew for a moment before raising the bowl to her lips. Her eyes close in pleasure.

Bodhi takes his bowl of stew but rejects the bread roll – Bones puts it on a plate next to hers to see if she can cajole him into eating it. She takes a sip of her own and purrs in delight. It's a good stew today. They must have caught something suitably meaty, and the cooks are bloody Force-gifted with spices. They know how to stretch virtually nothing to feed an army and make it taste good.

Body clutches his bowl in two thickly swathed hands. He fumbles with it.

"Ah," Bones says. She sets her own bowl down, slides off the table, and plucks the bowl from Bodhi's hands, carefully. He looks at her mournfully. "I'm sorry, I should have thought," she says. She places the bowl on the table, grabs a spoon and a cloth, and hops back up. Beckons him closer (he complies). She picks up the spoon, dips it in the stew at her side, and carefully guides the spoon towards Bodhi. Her eyes crinkle. "I promise I won't make X-wing sounds," she says. Bodhi barks out a laugh. His eyes brighten. He wraps his lips about the spoon shaft and sighs as the stew hits his tongue.

Bones smiles. Retracts the spoon and dips it again. "It's good, isn't it?" she says.

"It's very good," Bodhi agrees.

"That's because we have amazing cooks," she replies, bringing the spoon to his lips again. He humms. She begins tearing up his bread roll and soaking it in stew. Scoops it up onto the spoon and offers it to him. He smiles at that, and his eyes crinkle in the corners.

He begins to relax as the dipill and stew work their magic. Bones notices when his shoulders start to ease down and back, when his face loses that pinched look. When the corners of his mouth relax. She breathes an internal sigh of relief and continues spooning the last of the stew into him. She should have thought earlier. Should have realised. With fingers bandaged like that, he couldn't possibly hold a bowl, let alone a bread bun.

She picks up her own stew, now lukewarm, and dunks her bread bun in it. There are big chunks of some unidentifiable meat. She picks them up with bits of bread and pops them in her mouth, chewing in delight, mopping up the last of the stew with the last of her bun. Dart comes around and takes the empty bowls away and deposits a mug of caf on the table next to Bones. She takes a long drink.

Bodhi's eyelids are drooping and his lips are slack by the time Dart is back.

"Alright, buddy, let's get you into bed," Bones says and hops back off the table, sliding her hand between Bodhi's arm and torso and guiding him with gentle pressure to the undamaged inside of his upper arm. He moves with her to the side of the room, where the beds are positioned. Dart puts the rails down on both sides of the bed and cranks it down until it is just over a metre off the floor. "Now, we're going to do something a little odd here," she says, turning to face Bodhi. "I don't want you flexing your hip at all for a few more days yet, so I'm going to hold you under your armpits and you're going to hold yourself completely straight while we lower you to the floor – don't worry, Dart will have your legs so you won't slip. Then we're going to lift you up, and I'll need you to tense your muscles up so you stay straight again, and put you on the bed." Bodhi nods and smiles. His eyebrows are relaxed. "Okay, turn around." He does. Bones puts her hands up beneath his armpits. "Let yourself lean back," she says, and he does. She takes his weight. "Now all you need to do is keep your body straight, we'll do the rest," she says, and begins to slowly step backwards and lower him to the ground.

Dart holds his legs around the burnt bits, which is a lot easier said than done.

Even with her hands under his armpits by the time Bodhi is flat on his back on the floor, he is wincing in pain. "I'll get you some more pain relief to help you sleep, we've just got to get you up on the bed now. This is going to hurt a bit, because I'm going to have to hold you around your shoulders, and Dart needs to get your legs, but it will be over quickly. You just keep yourself straight."

This time when Bodhi nods he does not smile, but rather grits his teeth. "Okay, I'm going to count to three and then we lift, so be ready," Bones warms, her arms looping under his armpits, face alongside his as she braces herself. "One, two, three!" Bones lifts and Bodhi doesn't scream or cry out, but it is a near thing. They retract their hands the moment his back hits the cushioned bed. Bones grabs the hypospray, clips in the sedative, and gives him a slightly higher dose.

"You okay there, Bodhi?" she asks, touching the inside of his wrist. He looks at her and nods, lips still clamped tightly. "Okay, I'd like you to try to get some sleep. I'll be here, and so will Jyn, and so will Baze, so you can relax." She pats his wrist and moves away. Bodhi closes his eyes. In moments his body is limp and breathing slow.

Bones makes a beeline for Dart, a scowl on her face. "Not that I don't like spending time with you, but didn't I tell you to fuck off to sleep?" she says, planting her hands on her hips and staring down the (now sheepish) nurse.

"Yes, boss," he says.

She points at the door. "Fuck the fuck off to sleep," she says. He quickly puts down the data pad and flees.

Jyn snorts. "You, too," Bones says, turning to level the young woman with a Look. "I have sedatives and I'm more than happy to knock you out for some peace and quiet." Jyn looks like she's struggling not to smile. Baze's eyes twinkle with mirth. "Oh, I'm not joking," she says and picks up a hypospray. Jyn promptly looks to the roof and closes her eyes. Baze's eyes keep twinkling, but he turns them away.

"Good." She picks up her caf and a datapad and starts going through all the fucking paperwork.

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	6. Chapter 6

**AN:** OKAY SO this chapter comes with a SPECIAL swear warning because of the use of the 'c' word immediately following 'shit'. It's one of my favourite swears.

Also gratuitous use of the word 'fuck'.

I lived in Sydney for three years, where the 'c' word is used as both a compliment and an insult, and in fact can be used for both in the same sentence. Since then it's kinda fallen into my swearing language and it alarms the shit out of people.

 **Disclaimer:**

I own nothing you recognise. This is all completely un-beta'd and totally fresh off the top of my brain!

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There are many theories as to why Bones joined the Rebellion, and more of why she received such preferential treatment.

The intake officer had looked at her in surprise when she'd arrived. "Why do you want to join the Rebellion?" he'd asked.

"Because the Imperials are cockbites," she'd snarled, and pushed her way past. (The intake officer had written it down, and 'cockbite' promptly became the Swear Of The Month.)

There was the theory that she was Mon Mothma's Long Lost Evil Twin Sister. That was Bones' favourite. There were the more outrageous ones – where she was the one who single handedly took down a Star Destroyer by hypospraying the captain, taking his place, and driving the ship into a planet.

The truth, however, is much simpler.

Mon Mothma was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Many years ago, during the Clone Wars, Mon Mothma and Senator Tor were tasked with securing diplomatic ties with many of the outer rim planets. On one such planet, on one such task, on one such day, she stood up, and took a blast through the chest that would have otherwise gone straight through Senator Tor's head.

They were days from anywhere, on a bantha-drawn cart (their bantha had received a large cut to its foot, and so the whole procession had stopped to allow the veterinarian to treat it), the medics had scratched their heads and said "we can't do anything without a bacta tank".

The veterinarian overheard.

" _Like shit you can't_ ," were the first words that endeared Mon Mothma to the angry young woman, already then going by the name 'Bones'. "Fucking useless piece of shitcunt doctors," the woman had growled as she clambered up onto the cart. One of the medics was pushed off the edge as she shoved people aside to get to Mon Mothma, who was gasping for air that would never arrive in her lungs. Reaching the dying woman, the tiny mud-splattered girl had spun around with a snarl. "Fuck the fuck off you useless fucks," she'd said, before grabbing her kit, throwing it open, and turning to Mon Mothma.

Mon Mothma had survived to reach a bacta tank. The veterinarian was long gone by the time she'd been released from medical, but that didn't stop her hunting.

It wasn't until after the Clone Wars that Mon Mothma succeeded in locating her.

"I owe you my lungs," she had said by way of explanation.

"Yeah, well, keep breathing and we'll call it square," Bones had fired back.

They'd left it at that.

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